This application claims the benefit of a Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-027233 filed Feb. 3, 2004, in the Japanese Patent Office, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to Z-fold methods and image forming apparatuses and Z-fold methods, and more particularly to a Z-fold method for automatically folding a transfer sheet or medium such as paper, and an image forming apparatus which employs such a Z-fold method to fold the transfer sheet or medium when ejecting the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an image forming apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a composite apparatus) integrally comprising the functions of a printing apparatus (or printer), a copying apparatus, a facsimile apparatus, a scanning apparatus (or scanner) and the like, has been developed. Such a composite apparatus has a display part, a printing part, an image pickup (or imaging) part and the like that are provided within a housing. In addition, the composite apparatus is provided with 4 kinds of application programs (hereinafter simply referred to as applications) respectively corresponding to the printing apparatus, the copying apparatus, the facsimile apparatus and the scanning apparatus. The composite apparatus functions as the printing apparatus, the copying apparatus, the facsimile apparatus and the scanning apparatus by switching the applications.
A Z-fold function is one of various functions provided by the composite apparatus. The Z-fold function automatically folds a transfer sheet or medium such as paper (hereinafter referred to as a recording medium) when ejecting the recording medium from the composite apparatus. For example, if an A3-size document coexists within A4-size documents, the Z-fold function is used to fold the A3-size document so as to match the sizes of the documents.
But the conventional Z-fold function was not always useful due to limitations posed on the folding. For example, the Z-fold may be possible with respect to the A3-size document but not with respect to the A4-size document, and the Z-fold desired by the operator (or user) may not be possible.